Written Answers Wednesday 14 October 2009

Scottish Executive

Civil Servants

George Foulkes (Lothians) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many senior civil service posts in the Scottish Executive and its agencies were eliminated in 2008-09 and what savings have been achieved as a result.

John Swinney: In any year there will be senior civil service posts which end and others which are created in-line with business needs, and, in some cases, the merger and demerger of posts. There is no management purpose in recording information which treats all individual posts as fixed entities and such data would be potentially misleading.

Finance

Ms Wendy Alexander (Paisley North) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what representations it made prior to 22 September 2009 to the (a) European Commission and (b) UK Government regarding the EU probe into competition in British banking services; whether these submissions are in writing, and, if so, whether it will publish them.

John Swinney: The European Commission (EC) is currently in discussion with those banks which received aid from member state governments and under its Rescue and Restructuring guidelines, as applied by Article 87(2)(b) of the EC Treaty, this aid must be followed by an appropriate restructuring plan.

  The EC has not opened a formal investigation and as a result we have made no representations prior to 22 September 2009.

  Scottish Government officials are continuing to closely monitor the situation.

Finance

Ms Wendy Alexander (Paisley North) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has carried out investigations to establish the degree of competitiveness in the Scottish banking market in the last 12 months and, if so, whether it will publish the data.

John Swinney: The Scottish Government’s Access to Finance survey, which concentrated on business banking, highlighted the extent to which two banks are the main providers of finance to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Scotland, with around three quarters of the market share for SME finance. The survey provided an indication of the concentration of the market and I highlighted this concern in a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 17 July, immediately following publication of the survey. It should be noted however, that the survey examined issues around business banking, and any indication of market shares relate to this aspect and not necessarily to the overall range of financial services provided by the banks

  The Scottish Government shared the findings of this survey with the Office of Fair Trading which, under the terms of the Enterprise Act, has the power to refer markets to the Competition Commission for further investigation where it has reasonable grounds for suspecting that any feature or combination of features, of a market is preventing, restricting or distorting competition.

  The Scottish Government Access to Finance survey 2009 was published on 16 July 2009 and is available at:

  http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Economy/access-finance/report.

Finance

Ms Wendy Alexander (Paisley North) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what action it has taken to establish whether there is sufficient competition in small business banking in Scotland and whether it will publish any relevant evidence.

John Swinney: I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-27655 on 14 October 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx .